The Tiff Singularity (A Collection of Lake Wonder Fiction)

To Betty, From Tiff (October 2022)

Dear Betty,

October time. It's here!

August feels like it was yesterday and, yet, I've changed a bit since then. I finally went to the doctor for one exact thing (I'm not telling you. It wasn't the grapes thing. I am still eating those), college started, I'm a god now... Time moves fast when you're trying to take two months to repair what you broke in the last five, I suppose. I feel like I'm better now. Not calmer-- I don't think I'll ever be calmer-- but definitely more in my element, less frantic, and less desperately lonely. Rationally, I know about the importance of hope. The difference is, now I can actually feel it.

It's nice. I don't want to let it go.

I'm writing this close to Halloween, since that makes me think of you (and all the other letters I wrote got eaten by Kepler when he was rampaging a few days ago).

Kepler is an alien, by the way. I'm not sure from where. I figured you would find that neat. I haven't told him yet, but I've been working on a communication device in secret so he can tell me things if he wants to, when he's ready. I just want to know his story, I guess. (I also want to know every little detail about where he's from, their societal customs, their technologies, how he got here, if that UFO that abducted me last summer was one of his, if the other UFO I saw on Christmas Eve was dropping him off, why they're rat-shaped, what the reason for his being here is, what evolutionary advantage the glowing bits have, how he really feels about living here-- everything.)

I will admit I have become attached to him. Just having him back and rooting around has made everything feel a little less empty.

As it stands, Aunt Esther is trying to do my hair, and reading over my shoulder-- I KNOW YOU ARE, AUNTIE, SAY HI TO BETTY. (She says hi. She also wants to know if you're eating enough. I told her it's a weird thing to ask.)

It's almost Halloween! I'm actually dressing up this year! After sixteen years of not being allowed to and two more of spending it semi-alone with a horror movie, I decided fuck it, I'm taking Darren from next door trick or treating. I'm also dressing up like Tiffany Valentine in the first few minutes of Bride of Chucky (you know how much I love that movie, and it isn't like I have the patience to do The Fly anyway, what with all the prosthetic SFX I would need). Maybe I'll actually get used to seeing my legs!

Okay, Aunt Esther is telling me that being skittish about seeing my thighs is some modesty culture bullshit, and I suppose she's right, but she doesn't have to say it right now while she's tugging my hair with a comb-- I'll come back to this letter in a minute, when we're done talking.

I'm back. We came to an agreement, though it wasn't much of a disagreement to begin with; I wanted to try out seeing more of my legs anyway, and Halloween is a good time to experiment with expressions of the self-- irrelevant. That's irrelevant.

Anyway. Not to sound like a pin from the Hot Topic cheapo bin, but being normal is really hard, and splitting my life is harder. Don't get me wrong, I'll do it. I'm fine with doing it. Whatever gets eyes off Lake Wonder, you know?

But-- it's bad. It's going bad. I feel like I've faded away entirely, like I'm not myself in the slightest. Basically all anyone knows about me is that I'm from Florida and moved "recently," I'm eighteen (odd for this level of classwork), and I'm from Lake Wonder. The town becomes the weird thing, not me. Usually, I prefer it to be the opposite. Maybe that would have kept the BRD out of our hair.

I suppose that isn't true, that it's all anyone knows about me. In my attempt to make friends through organic chemistry, I went to do that "urbex" thing (their word, not mine) with a few of my classmates out at Lumberland. It was very illegal and, almost karmically, a few restless Halloween spirits (upset because of separate corporate bullshit encroaching on them and their space-- you get it) started attacking us, and I had to do the mad science thing to save them. Also, Kepler did his thing. I don't think Olive or Tony are going to speak to me again outside of organic chemistry stuff. Olive hasn't even shown up to do our lab work lately (which is bad, because she's my lab partner, meaning I have to do everything myself).